Debate Wrap Up II
By Ron Beasley
Well there were no deer in the headlight moments and the format really didn't allow for long periods of incoherence, that said Biden won easily. Palin once again did little but repeat canned folksy talking points that frequently had little or nothing to do with the question. She was unable to give even one example of how a McCain administration would be any different than a Bush administration. The base will love her but there isn't enough of the base left to win an election.
The snap polls would indicate that a majority saw it that way too.
CBS polled 473 uncommitted debate-watchers, and found that 46% say Biden won, 21% say Palin won, and 33% say it was a tie.
While both candidates saw their images improve, 98% saw Biden as "knowledgeable" after the debate, while only 66% saw Palin as knowledgeable, an admittedly high number, given what folks thought of her before tonight.
Meanwhile, CNN's poll of debate-watchers found that far more thought Biden did the best job in the debate (51%) than Palin did (36%).
And here's a really key number from CNN. While a startling 84% said Palin did better than expected, it still wasn't enough for her to clear her basic hurdle tonight: Only 46% said she's qualified to serve as president, up only four points from before the debate. And a clear majority, 53%, say she is not qualified.
I think too much significance was placed on this debate. McCain's problem is John McCain not Sarah Palin. He is the one who has been erratic and incoherent the last two weeks.
Update
Conservative Daniel Larison gets it right:
How’s that for a compliment? There’s no question that Palin was outmatched the entire time, and I am fairly sure that viewers will come away thinking that Biden was the winner and was more qualified for the VP role. Give her credit–she held on through the entire thing, clutching to her prearranged attack points for dear life, and she didn’t say anything that was fantastically horrible. Her statement on civilian casualties caused by airstrikes in Afghanistan would have been atrocious if I believed that she knew any better, but I feel confident that she does not know anything about the situation in Afghanistan. McCain’s campaign is already in terminal decline, so it probably didn’t matter that much anyway. Had she completely failed, it would have made the result more lopsided, but I expect that there will be only a marginal boost for Obama in the next few days.
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